The total recall thread

Beta Public Beta
#1

Not sure how many of us plan on using this feature, I’ve heard very little chatter about it since the release of OB 1.10. Personally, I hope to use it a lot. As I use OB in Live a lot, it makes sense to me to have an easy way to keep things organized and saved. Perhaps an opportunity to simplify the sometimes convoluted elektron way of saving and storing work.

Perhaps…I spent some time with this yesterday and found mixed results. I had multiple instances where one or both machines (AK/AR) didn’t “asked to be recalled”, even though that option was selected and saved in the plugin within the Live project. Had to do several restarts. I had a few crashes and loud outbursts of static from the AK. though I don’t have any idea to what extent total recall was responsible. Also a few Live crashes. I find myself attracted to the promised ease of this feature, but a bit scared of it.

A few questions:

So total recall apparently saves everything in an A4/AR project within the plugin within the DAW project. I even heard Cenk mention in the video that you can share DAW files, so supposedly I could load up a Live project with total recall saved to the plugin on a blank AR and hear everything as it is supposed to sound? What about the samples within the project – surely they’re not saved to the plugin as well?

And when you save a session to the plugin, what happens to the data on the + drive? Nothing if you don’t also save manually on your device? I’ve noticed that when you have a project loaded from a saved plugin state, you no longer see the little triangle the the Project menu that indicates the currently loaded project. This is confusing. So is the corresponding project actually loaded on the device, or is is all within the plugin?

What would be the best practice for ensuring that your projects are securely saved?

Going to play around with this some more and hopefully learn more. I want to be fully fluent with this process before I trust any important material to it.

#2

Same for me; I’m interested in the feature but it seems difficult to “control” what happens to the machine/projects with recall. First attempts caused some Live crashes and freezes, I will wait for more stable version.

#3

Similar issues, which seem to me to be more attributable to the handling of multiple Elektrons on my MBP than total recall, at the moment I’ve dropped my A4 from my setup altogether, everything is working pretty much fine with just the Rytm.

Yes and probably. Or at least I’m 99% certain that they’re saved to the plugin - hard to rule out the possibility that they’re pulled from the +Drive, considering all the samples are in there, but I’m almost certain they’re transferred from the plug. It would explain the longer load/save, sync and accept recall times with Rytm projects containing a fuller sample pool.

Correct as far as I can gather - the plugin populates the Elektron’s current state from it’s synced data. It overwrites the box’s current state but doesn’t affect what’s on the +Drive.

Think that’s an important concept - the “current state” being what’s been loaded and tweaked on the box at any given time, which is what gets synced and recalled … and replaced … as opposed to a saved project file, that resides on the +Drive.

My current approach is one Elektron project for Live Project, notwithstanding the fact that whatever data is in the Rytm’s currently opened project (as opposed to what’s saved on the +Drive) will be replaced by accepting a plugin recall, I like to open the project from the drive anyway before loading in Ableton, so as to make sure that I save whatever I was previously working on. Then double up saving by syncing on save to the plugin but also saving the project to the +Drive when I finish up. In theory you could probably just rely on plugin recall, but for a million reasons I don’t think that’s a good idea.

#4

Hi Zwolf,
you should only use one instance of OB for Analog Rytm and one for the OB for Analog 4/Keys at a time. Dont put two instances of the same AR or A4 Plug-in in one Project, this wont’ work.

As I understand it Total Recal just transfers a sysexdump from the Hardware to the plugin and saves it with the daw project. When you recall it, it sends the sysex back to the hardware, when you answere the question to recall from the plugin. Otherwise the new setting of the hardware is transfered to the plugin and they stay in sync for the rest of the session. When you save your daw-project I would also save the project in the A4 and/or AR, so that you have a redundant backup. The +Drive is not affected from the total recall.
Greetings,
Goat

#5

Thanks for chiming in. Goatofneptune - just running instance of the plugin per machine, sorry if my wording was confusing.

@Benway - it seems you’ve done some extensive testing with TR; doesn’t seem that too many others have at this point. All your points are great and valid.

I’ve spent some more time with this feature and I’m starting to feel much more comfortable/confident with it. Now that I’m clear that projects on the +drive are unaffected and everything that’s stored in the DAW gets pushed to the working state of the machine (if you ask for that), I’m much more sorted on the workflow. And yes, I will always make a duplicate on the +drive as a backup.

I do see rather long loading times for Ableton projects that have TR enabled. And I’m only working with projects with 20 or less samples loaded. I hope it doesn’t get preventatively slow once things are more fully stocked. Although I don’t mind waiting for a good thing. And I find maybe 3 times out of 10 the TR doesn’t work one way or the other; the good thing is that it does right away if you re-activate.

I’ve figured out that the re-activate button is a good one to choose because this option always forces the question of which (if any) type of TR you want. That way you can choose to sync Live to your machine if you’ve made recent changes on your device you don’t want to lose. Or vice versa.

One thing to be improved hopefully in later editions is the extent to which the functionality between the machine and OB is bi-directional. Seems to work well for all basic parameters, but not so much for sample related activities. I’m not seeing changes I make on the +drive (either via OB or on the device) reflected until reloading the set. This can make for some confusion/ danger.

But all in all, I’m very impressed thus far. My mind is racing with the possibilities for project management. The one thing that has always bothered me about the Rytm is that it takes me a while to set up cool kits and sounds. Part of this has been laziness in not making a determined effort to set things up beyond loading it with great samples, and part of it is just confusion about the best approach for the quickest workflow. I’m seeing some real possibilites here with OB, total recall and Sounds. I’ll post on this in another thread.

#6

How has Total Recall been working for you guys on the latest versions of OB?

#7

Works well for me mate. Although I do still find myself forgetting that I have it on, until I look at the A4 screen asking me to choose!

#8

Works great 90% of the time for me. The 10% that doesn’t work happens occasionally when trying to save a Ableton project it just hangs forever, or failure to prompt recall on load, and then the occasional audio dropout.

#9

Pretty much perfect for me!

#10

I am having some troubles while working with patterns on the Rhythm using OB… I save the Ableton project, I make the total recall on the AR when OB is activated again and the pattern disappears. Anyone having that issue?

#11

After using Total Recall in one of my Digitakt’s projects the green (global) mutes aren’t working in it anymore. Other projects are unaffected. Anyone else experiencing this?

#12

Tried this for the first time today, brilliant! another awesome feature i wasn’t making use of yet

#14